by Amir Lane
“I just lost my temper. It’s fine.”
She lifted my hand and kissed the inside of my wrist. The sensation made me shudder. While I had been initially embarrassed to have her around during my post-not-firing meltdown, I was glad she’d decided to stay over.
“You’re lucky they aren’t broken. Since when do you have a temper?” She frowned. “Did somebody try to hurt you?”
I shook my head.
Maybe it was luck that my hand wasn’t broken, maybe I didn’t hit the locker that hard, maybe I subconsciously protected myself with my powers. Who knew? More importantly, who cared? I sure as hell didn’t, not right then at least.
Okay, maybe I was spiralling a little. Just a little.
I shouldn’t have turned the news on. I knew I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t stop myself. Not knowing what was going on in my city, or at least in my own neighbourhood, was driving me crazy, and it had only been a day. Until my not-suspension was lifted, the news was my only source of information. Ariadne whined in the back of her throat to voice her disapproval. The effect was lost when she curled up against me, her head on my shoulder.
“Did anything weird happen at work?” I asked, running my undamaged fingers through her hair.
“Weird?” she repeated. “Don’t you mean interesting?”
“Weird, interesting. Same thing.”
Ariadne sighed and tipped her head up to me. “Fairuz, you finally have a break from work. Enjoy it.”
There was a distinction between having a break and being suspended that I didn’t have the energy to make. She was humouring me enough by letting me watch the news, even though neither of us had talked about why it was on instead of whatever else we usually put on at this hour. I couldn’t enjoy this time off, though, not when it was for such a bullshit excuse. Of all the reasons I’d seen officers suspended — and there weren’t many — it had never been for trading cases. As long as the paperwork was done, nobody really cared all that much. The fact that Rowan had gotten hurt might have lent some credibility to the suspension, if not for Sabine’s warning.
“I told you I couldn’t protect you.”
When she’d first given me that warning, we had been talking about the phoenix case. If this was only about wandering into another district or Rowan getting hurt, she wouldn’t have repeated that, would she? It would have been unrelated.
It wasn’t unrelated. It was an excuse.
They’d taken the first excuse they could to get me out the door. The only reason they couldn’t get rid of me completely was policy, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t find a way. The only advantage — the only hope — I had was that Internal Affairs was largely made up of fae, who tended to me much more difficult to bribe or blackmail than most people. That didn’t mean it couldn’t be done. Everybody had a price.
At least mall security was still an option.
“Fairuz, are you okay? You’re… glowing.”
I was under the impression that ‘glowing’ was considered a good thing. Wasn’t that how pregnant people were described? It wasn’t until I looked down at the hand Ariadne was holding that I understood her concern. Through the sleeve of my sweater was a faint purple glow. Now that I focused on it, I could feel the familiar burn running through my skin. I breathed through my nose in an even rhythm, willing my blood pressure and the defensive reflex to fade away. I could only get the Arabic lettering to fade as far as my lower back, intensifying the uncomfortable pressure I was putting on my pelvis in this position.
This was ridiculous.
“I need air,” I said, nudging her off me. “I’m going for a walk.”
“But you just got back from the pool.”
That didn’t stop me from feeling like I had to move. Swimming usually exhausted me but tonight, I felt on edge.
Something was happening tonight, out there in my city.
“I won’t be long,” I promised.
I lowered my head to kiss her. She didn’t kiss back. The worried frown was still on her face.
“Call me if you need me to come get you,” she said quietly.
I nodded and grabbed my jacket.
It was cold out, cold enough to make me regret the decision to walk, but it felt good at the same time. There was nothing that could get me out of my own head like the mid-March chill. During the day, it was warm enough that spring was starting to poke through the snow. At night, though, I could see my breath. It was oddly beautiful to me. Most nights didn’t get this cold in Lebanon. Even in the dead of winter, it rarely got below freezing.
I missed it sometimes. Most times, actually. Canada was nothing like Lebanon. The only thing they had in common were the amount of trees, and even then, they were different kinds. Toronto was mostly urbanized, with little nature to be found.
There were some places where clusters of trees could be found. The stretch I found myself walking down had a good row of trees planted by the neighbours. It wasn’t the same as a full and proper forest, but it was enough to satisfy the nature-lover in me. There was something beautiful about trees at night that I’d never been able to put my finger on. In the streetlight, the birches at the end looked abnormally pale.
Hang on…
I approached one of the birches and touched my hand to the bark.
The white, papery bark.
The strangest thing occurred to me then as I stood under the light, staring at the black spots flecked across the bark. If the colours were reversed, if the wood was black with intermittent white spots, it would look like the same bark that had covered Rowan. I forced myself to laugh. Rowan was an oak, it was in his name. Rowan had told me he was an oak. It was an absurd, easily verifiable thing to lie about. And anyway, there was no such thing as a black birch tree. Birches were white with black spots, not black with white spots, like reverse zebras.
My eyes started to water from the wind. I took a step back and started back in the direction of my house. I was barely ten feet from the reverse-zebra birches when I heard something.
A scream.
Two screams, overlapping.
Instinct took over. No more thoughts of home or birches, I ran in the direction of the screams. With the way they echoed through the night, I would have lost them if they hadn’t continued, mixing into cries of help. This time, I didn’t push back against the Arabic curling up my spine and into my hands. Instead, I embraced the glow and held onto the power in my hands. At this hour, I fully expected to have to put myself in front of someone to protect them. It wouldn’t be the first time, and I was ready.
At least, I was ready to fight off an attacker.
I wasn’t ready for what I really saw.
An elderly couple — a man and a woman — clutched each other close, pointing and screaming at something I didn’t know enough about anatomy to be able to properly identify. My eyes followed the path of something long enough to be an intestine to a narrow torso.
“You have to help her!” the man screamed. “She needs an ambulance!”
Shock was an incredible thing. It could completely override the rational part of the brain and make somebody process something completely different than what they were really seeing to protect themself. Sometimes, it was easier to fabricate a reality that could be coped with than it was to cope with reality. I didn’t have that luxury. I had to look at the scene in front of me and process it for what it was.
An ambulance wouldn’t do anything for this girl. Everything below her navel was gone. Was it easier to cut through a spine than a femur? It had to be. The bones were smaller and there was cartilage between the vertebra, whereas the femur was one solid chunk of calcium and whatever else bones were made of.
I turned to the woman. She seemed to be slightly less hysterical than the man.
“Ma’am, my name is Fairuz Arshad. I’m with the Toronto Police. I need you to call 9-1-1 for me. Can you do that? Tell them there is a woman at—” I looked around for street signs. I didn’t know this part of the neighbourhood well
enough to have them memorized. “John Street and Pine Street who has been, uhm—” What was the most tasteful way to say it? “— cut in half.”
There really wasn’t any better way of putting it.
While the woman pulled out a small flip phone, the man let out a low wail. He wasn’t going to faint, was he? It may have been insensitive, but I had enough to worry about. I pulled my own phone from my pocket and swiped to Ariadne’s most recent call. She picked up immediately.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I am. Do you have any of your equipment at home?”
There was a brief pause on her end. “By ‘equipment’, you mean…”
“Medical examiner’s equipment. I have a situation that could use your expertise.”
“I have a basic kit. What do you mean by ‘situation’, Fairuz? Did you do something?” Another pause. “Are you in trouble? Shit, okay, do we have bleach? I just got you garbage bags so—”
I asked her to bring a medical examiner’s kit and she assumed I killed someone? I might have been insulted if I wasn’t too busy deciding whether or not I should have been concerned that her first instinct was to try and help me cover it up. Or if I should have been offended that she thought I’d killed someone and would want to cover it up instead of report it.
“No. I found a body. I’m calling it in, but you’re the closest medical examiner.”
Assistant Medical Examiner Doctor Ariadne Starpert.
From the sound of it, the woman had a dispatcher on the line. A dead body with no legs was about all they needed to know. It wasn’t as though anybody could do anything for her. I walked around what was left of the body and, making a wide circle to avoid accidentally disrupting any evidence, moved only close enough to see her face. I had to keep reminding myself I wasn’t acting as an officer right now. This wasn’t my case. The dark made it difficult to make out any features. I angled my phone toward her and immediately dropped it on the pavement. The sound of the screen shattering came to me as though through water. That brief glimpse was all I needed.
I knew this girl.
It was the girl from the pool.
The girl who's name I'd never bothered to learn.
Chapter Fourteen
“Do you expect me to believe, Miss Arshid—”
“Arshad.”
“— that your being here is entirely a coincidence?”
It was cold, even for March, and I’d been out here for what felt like hours. I didn’t know why Inspector Vance was here, unless people turning up with half their bodies missing was on his radar.
Or, the paranoid part of my brain said, unless he’s following you.
I told that part of my brain to shut up. I knew he was suspicious, that was more than enough. The last thing I needed was to convince myself I had to keep looking over my shoulder more than I already was.
From the corner of my eyes, I watched as Kieron and Indira talked to the couple who had initially found the girl while the medical examiner and Ariadne’s boss-slash-roommate, Deva Jhaveri, looked at the body.
Rachel Cherry.
The girl’s name was Rachel Cherry.
In all the weeks we’d swam together, I never knew her name. I didn’t even really know what she was. A melusine, maybe, or an abgal. I could have asked her, but I never did. And I could have walked her home, made sure she got back safe. I didn’t have to keep the same pattern of only acknowledging each other for half a minute four times a week. But I had, and now she was dead.
I squared my jaw and looked back at Vance, taking some satisfaction in the fact that I was taller than him, even if only by a couple inches. I couldn’t let him see what was going on in my head. That I was questioning everything that had gotten me here, wondering where I’d gone wrong, wondering which mistake I’d made that had gotten a girl killed.
Was it chance that he was here? Was he involved? Was it a coincidence that the dead girl was somebody I knew?
It didn’t look like a message. It didn’t look like anything other than a mess.
Blood was seeping into the pavement.
Could they wash blood out of asphalt? Would they even bother?
If I couldn’t keep myself together, I was going to be in even bigger trouble than I already was.
“The nice thing about facts,” I said evenly despite my spinning head, “is that I don’t care what you believe.”
That might not have been the exact quote, but the scowl on his face told me he got the point.
“I’m starting to wonder if you don’t have something to do with this, Miss Arshid.”
“Arshad.” I wasn’t going to let him get away with mispronouncing my name, something I was sure he was doing deliberately now.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if that partner of yours was in on it, too,” he said as though I hadn’t corrected him. “And really, I’m not sure I trust Karen and Bollywood over there either.”
It took almost everything I had not to drop my jaw, and everything else not to slap him for that. I wasn’t sure which one I wanted to hit him for first. Kieron, who was clearly within earshot, stepped in before I could. Most of the time, he had a way of making himself seem smaller, less intimidating, and he was good enough at it that somehow people tended to forget just how big he was. He wasn’t letting anyone forget it now. He was tall as any dryad and twice as broad.
“Listen here, ye cow-eyed little fuck,” he said, towering over Vance, anger worsening his accent as he went on. “You are more than welcome to throw around ideas ye want. God knows you been out o’ detective-ing long enough to need the practice. But don’t you fucking dare start accusing my detectives of anything ye can’t back up. At this point, the only leg you have to stand on is that she’s been doing her goddamn job. You don’t trust us? You want someone else looking after this? That’s fine. I’m fine wi’ dat. Indira, are you fine wi’ dat?”
From the other side of the road, Indira gave us a thumb’s up, though I wasn’t sure he’d actually heard the question. Kieron’s tone certainly didn’t suggest he was open to a discussion here.
“We’re fine wi’ dat. But since ye obviously have an issue wi’ detectives trading cases, ye’ll need to wait ’til mornin’ to get the paperwork started to get another team out to this precinct. Is dat what you want to do? No? Then get the fuck off my crime scene!”
Vance stared up at Kieron, the redness of his face visible even in the late night darkness. His mouth flapped open and shut, reminiscent of a cartoon fish. I worried his head was actually going to explode. I held my breath, waiting for it to happen. Without a single coherent response, Vance stumbled away, glancing back as though he wasn’t sure what had happened. I wasn’t sure what had happened, and I chose not to point out that we could have gotten a Homicide team from our precinct. Vance obviously didn’t think about it, so I wasn’t going to make the suggestion.
As I looked back at Kieron, I thought I saw something hovering over Vance. By the time I tipped my head up to get a better look, it was gone.
My imagination, I told myself despite the cramping in my stomach.
I needed sleep. I needed food. I needed coffee..
I need a drink.
Kieron turned to me, a sheepish grin on his lips. The pale blue glow in his eyes faded away. The only thought that went through my mind was an unbidden, I want to be you when I grow up.
“Got a little carried away, there. Son of a bitch is lucky all I did was spoil the milk in his coffee.”
For a moment, I thought he was being metaphorical, until I saw Vance bring his paper Tim Horton’s cup to his lips and immediately spit out his drink.
A chill ran through me. I had always heard that kitchen witches could only affect the things they touched. Apparently, monarchies and wealthy people had historically employed them as maids, but not cooks for fear they would poison the food with their bare hands. But Kieron hadn’t even touched the coffee. If he’d spoiled the milk in Vance’s coffee, he’d done it over a distance. I’d al
ways assumed his bulky muscles were to make up for a weaker form of magic, but maybe the point was to make people think that.
Or maybe he just got bulky in the army and never got out of the habit. What was it Oscar had said once? Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Honestly, this was getting out of hand. If I started second guessing the motivation behind Kieron’s gym membership, I was going to run out of people to trust. Next I’d be wondering if Ariadne filled up gas at that particular station because she was hiding the fact that she was a banshee on the run from the concubus mafia from me.
Kieron rubbed a hand over his face and groaned. “Oh, and there’s the migraine. Sorry, I can’t usually do that shit. You all right if Indira takes your statement?”
“Of course,” I said.
For someone who had just given a superior officer Hell, Kieron seemed oddly calm. I suddenly wondered about his sanity. It was nice to worry about someone else’s other than mine.
I didn’t notice Indira moving until he was right in front of me, all smiles like we weren’t standing a few feet from where someone from the Medical Examiner’s office was scraping Rachel Cherry’s organs into a body bag. Someone was going to have to tell her parents. Was she local? I’d seen her in a University of Toronto hoodie before, but her parents could have been from out of town. They could have been from anywhere. I had no idea.
“Fairuz? Are you all right?” Indira asked.
Ariadne, standing next to Deva Jhaveri, had asked me that same question earlier tonight, hadn’t she? How long ago had that been? It couldn’t have been more than a few hours, but it felt like days. Weeks, even. I looked back at Indira with heavy eyelids. The weight of the world on my shoulders made me slump a little.
“No,” I admitted. “I just saw her not a few hours ago. How— How could this happen?”
The neighbours — some of the neighbours — talked about how much safer they felt having a cop in the neighbourhood. Some talked about how much safer they felt with a barrier witch around. What good was I as both if I couldn’t protect people as either? We had been… friends was generous, but certainly friendly. I had just seen her and I couldn’t protect her.